Chapter 68: The Sin of Greed
Lyra could only watch in shock as a deep silence descended on the battlefield, and everyone came to a sudden realization! Rita had just used Third Tier Blood Magic!
’She has Third Tier Blood Magic!? How can we fight against something like that!?’
Blood Magic in Varina was divided into three tiers based on the level of control and power that you had. The first tier was the ability to control the blood in your own body. Varina vampires could all extract blood from their bodies and use it as weapons or shields to protect themselves from physical and magical attacks. But this particular tier of blood magic was seen as the weakest because the amount of skill needed to use it was low, and it was known to take a lot of energy from the caster, so the caster would have to take time to rest after using their blood for a while!
The second tier of blood magic was when a caster learned to control the blood of others that was already outside the body! Spilled blood or blood from injuries that had already flowed out from someone else’s body can be controlled and used as weapons against others! This is the tier that most of the powerful vampires in Varina were in. Here, they no longer have to worry about losing energy since they are not using their own blood, and they could always find more blood to use by simply taking down more enemies and spilling their blood!
But it was the third tier of the Blood Magic that people truly feared! This tier of users had already transcended the limitations of the body, and now the caster no longer had to wait for blood to spill out from an enemy before they could use it! The Third Tier of Blood Magic allowed the caster to control someone else’s blood even while it was still inside the body!
’I have to get out of here!’
Lyra immediately realized that there was no way she could survive this battle! If they tried to fight against Rita, then they were only going to get themselves killed! Since Lyra was one of the only people who could still move, she would be abandoning the rest of her men, but Lyra had learned from a long time on the battlefield that surviving sometimes meant leaving your allies behind! And that was exactly what Lyra was ready to do!
But before Lyra could even take a struggling step forward, Rita spread her hand over the battlefield, and all the blood that had sprayed out of the skewered man responded to her command and began to float into the air! The blood gathered into a massive ball above all the soldiers who had come from the past, and Rita activated a skill.
[Blood Cocoon]!
The blood immediately spread over the soldiers like a dome and began to trap them inside! Lyra screamed as she quickly jumped forward to escape, and she just managed to get out of the dome before the blood closed down and trapped all the other soldiers inside! Lyra was breathing heavily, and she could feel her heart beating rapidly! Lyra didn’t know why, but she had a feeling that if she had gotten trapped in there, then it would’ve really been the end for her! There would’ve been no chance of survival!
But Lyra would soon find out that there was no escape at all! A loud whistling sound echoed from high above, and Lyra looked up and immediately came face to face with Rita!
"Wha-!?"
BOOM!
Rita grabbed Lyra by the face and slammed her head into the ground like a missile! The ground cracked under the intense force, and Lyra let out a scream of pain as she felt Rita’s hand tighten around her skull! Rita stood up slowly while taking Lyra with her, and the Vampire general struggled desperately against Rita’s grip as she tried to get away! But there was nothing that Lyra could do, and the rest of the vampires who had been waiting for the time travellers to return felt a shiver go through their bodies as Rita turned her blood red eyes to glance at them threateningly!
None of the soldiers dared to take a step forward and confront Rita since they had already realized the impossible difference between Rita and the rest of them! So they could only watch as Lyra was pulled into the blood cocoon like cattle to the slaughter!
....
[Pastoni Territory]
Viva was getting bored. After Lana and Rita left a few minutes earlier, Percy had immediately told Ethan to take them back to the time when he had received the mysterious letter. Since someone had to have dropped the mysterious letter off, they might be able to figure out who was responsible for putting the letter there by simply waiting! But that had turned out to be a wasted effort because when they went back to that time, Percy found out that it was a maid who had dropped the letter off!
This meant that somebody paid the maid to do the dirty work for them, and since Percy didn’t want to use his magic against someone from another time that hadn’t affected the timeline in any way, he couldn’t use [Compulsion] or [Mind Scan] to find out who had given the maid the letter.
So rather than doing that, Percy had simply come up with a new plan! Percy had brought the second half of the medallion – the Key – with him, and he gave the Key to Ethan and told him to pretend like he got this Key from the past. Since someone had sent that letter, it was obvious that the person wanted to possess the Key. So once the person learned that Ethan had brought the Key back, it was obvious that they would show themselves so that they could take the Key from him!
And that was exactly what they did. Percy handed the Key over to Ethan, and he allowed him to take the Key to one of his superiors! Percy and Viva were hiding behind an [Illusion Veil] skill that Percy used. It allowed them to stay hidden even in plain sight, but Percy told Viva that she couldn’t move or the illusion would be broken! And that is why Viva was so bored.
Viva and Percy had been standing in this room for the past five minutes listening to Ethan explain to one of the Pastoni elders how this Key was the second half of the pendant that they found earlier, and they could both see the elder’s eyes gleaming with greed as he looked at the Key! The Pastoni had already been using the pendant to travel through time by now, so the elder couldn’t help but imagine what sort of power they would gain if they managed to combine this Key with the Lock to make a full Chronos Medallion! They might gain absolute control over time!
"Have you told anyone else about this?"
The elder asked this question while looking at the Key in his hand with a greedy expression, and Ethan said he hadn’t.
"I just returned from the past with it, elder. I hoped you would let the council know so they can decide what to do with it."
The elder hummed and nodded curiously, and the next time he spoke, he had an apologetic tone that showed how sorry he was!
"This is far too precious for me to share it with anyone else. I’ll have to keep this to myself."
"What?"
Ethan was confused by the elder’s words, and Ethan felt his eyes widen in shock as the elder raised his hand and began activating a Blood Magic Skill!